Amla/Avala/ Awala/Nelli kai or the Indian gooseberry is a fruit that is round shaped with vertical stripes. It is greenish yellow in colour and tastes sour. It is fibrous and has a big green pit that is to be discarded.
It has an intense sour and tangy in the beginning and gradually toward the end turns sweetish in taste. It is used in lot of ayurvedic medicines.
The taste has different name in Kannada"vagar" for sour in Kannada is "huli".
As kids we used to eat a lot of these fruits and drink water. The water tasted sweet.
Hubby dear does not like sour things so I was surprised when he came from the market with them. The first time he brought them I cut them up and made pickle. The second lot was just lying in the fridge. So I decided to end their misery and make something out of them.
After washing and drying them I first started grating them.
The first thing I tried was Nellikai Adki/Avala Supari.
Ingredients:
1 cup Alma grating
1 tsp of hing/asafoetida,
½ tsp salt
½ inch ginger grated (optional)
Method:
Mix all the ingredients well and dry in the sun.
This takes at least 1-2 days depending on the sun's intensity. Since it was raining I put all these in a thick bottomed fry pan on sim gas. Stir occasionally till the grating is all shrivelled up and dry.
Amla Pickle
This I had made the first time when I had chopped the Amla to pieces you could use the grated also to the same effect only go easy with the salt.
Ingredients:
1 cup pieces Amla
1 tsp salt
2 tblsp pickle masala
1 tblsp Shanta's pickle masala
¼ cup oil heated to smoking point and cooled.
Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl except the oil and stand for 30 minutes.
2. When the oil is cold add to the mixture and store in a bottle.
P.S. I stored mine in the fridge.
Moravala/ Awala Preserve
Ingredients:
1 cup Awla grating
A little less than ½ cup sugar
½ tsp green cardamom /Elichi powder.
Method:
Mix the sugar and the Amla and heat on low flame in a wide thick kadhai/fry pan . All the sugar melts and the mixture becomes quite watery. Continue heating the water evaporates and thickens. Now add the green cardamom powder and mix well. Let it remain in the kadhai/ fry pan till the mixture cools then transfer the Morawala/preserve in a clean dry bottle.
Tastes good with chapatti, bread.
A variation of this is sweet preserve is as below
Sweet-sour and pungent Amla Preserve
1 cup Alma grating
¼ cup jaggery
1 tsp chilli powder (heaped)
½ tsp hing/asafoetida
Salt to taste.
Method:
1. In a thick bottomed kadhai/ fry pan put the jaggery, hing/asafoetida, chilli powder and salt.
2. Heat on low flame till the jaggery melts, thicken a bit.
3. Perform the plate test. When the jaggery forms a soft ball add the Alma and mix.
4. The whole mixture becomes watery. Just continue to heat it till the mixture thickens.
5. When the same cools transfer to a clean dry jars.
